


The Beginning and The End

by ProblematicPines



Series: Valentine's Day 2019 [4]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Husbands, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Nightmares, Pain, Post-Canon, Reunion, Scars, Slightly older Jack Wright, Slightly older Sammy Stevens, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 12:36:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17787533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblematicPines/pseuds/ProblematicPines
Summary: The first Valentines’ Day Sammy spends without Jack was the worst one. Each one that followed hurt without Jack there to brighten up the occasion hurt more than words could ever describe, but they dulled in comparison to the very first one.--The first Valentine’s Day Sammy spent with Jack back by his side was the best one. Each one that followed it would be amazing and perfect in every conceivable way, but none of them would be able to hold a candle to the sheer amount of blissful euphoria that Sammy felt that very first day he shared with Jack.





	The Beginning and The End

The first Valentines’ Day Sammy spends without Jack was the worst one. Each one that followed hurt without Jack there to brighten up the occasion hurt more than words could ever describe, but they dulled in comparison to the very first one.

Sammy had spent Valentines’ by his lonesome before, plenty of times. All of his childhood and the vast majority of his youth were spent by himself. He didn’t particularly mind it; sure, he was a little bummed out about not being able to share the day with somebody that loved him in a way that made his heart flutter in his chest, but at the same time, it was mostly by choice. It wasn’t like he could put himself out there and hope to score with a dude for one day.

Especially not in rural California of all places.

If people found out he was one of “them homos” then he would have been chased down and stoned, regardless of his intentions.

No, those times were considered a blessing for Sammy in retrospect. At least then he didn’t have to worry about his significant other. He didn’t have to spend those holidays staring at the bottom of a liquor bottle and bawling himself to sleep.

He didn’t have to spend them without fearing for Jack’s safety, fretting over whether he would receive the stomach-twisting news of Jack’s body being found discarded in a roadside ditch like trash.

The mental image was one Sammy hated with almost as much as he hated being alone on a day he was supposed to spend embraced in his fianc é ’s arms. No matter how much he drank, no matter how much he’d slammed his fists against the walls of the accursed apartment he once shared with Jack, the thought of Jack being dead remained in the forefront of his mind.

It refused to go away. It had embedded itself in his psyche, rooting itself in his consciousness and solidifying itself as a permanent resident of his pain-wrecked existence.

Jack had been taken from him. He’d been snatched right up out of his life, taking with him everything Sammy held dear. He didn’t care about his job down at the radio station with Lily. Without Jack waiting in the studio for him, grinning at him as soon as he stepped through the door and bouncing with the energy that he only felt after finding a particularly juicy conspiracy theory, and turning Sammy’s miserable morning into a perfect day in just a moment, what was the point of even going there in the first place?

Without Jack, Sammy had nothing to live for.

Sure, he could have barricaded himself behind the persona that was Shotgun Sammy, with his crude attitude towards women and his laidback, uncaring nature. He could have concealed his pain from everyone and pretended as though he’d been disheartened by his coworker’s sudden absence, and not let anyone see how he was hurting.

How he was one police call away from leaping from his apartment balcony onto the concrete below.

That what he should have done. That was what a real man would have done.

A real man would have held his head high and sauntered through those doors and jeered about the faggot that ran away from all his responsibilities because he couldn’t cope with what life had dealt him.

Was he even talking about Jack anymore?

Sammy loathed the first Valentine’s Day he spent without Jack. He considered it the worst day of his life.

The night he travelled up to Perdition Wood outside of the accursed town that Jack had been so obsessed with was a close contender.

The night when he almost died. He should have died. Or have been snatched up by the Void and dragged into its infinite darkness, leaving behind the miserable world that had torn him down and never built him back up again. All it had done had tear his lingering hopes of finding Jack apart, and then stomp on the remains until all that were left were his mental anguish and scarred, bleeding arms.

Sammy wished that he could just end it all, that first Valentine’s Day. But he knew that he couldn’t. Not while the possibility of Jack still being out there remained. If he died, then who would Jack have to come home to? Who would be there to help Jack if he was really in trouble?

Certainly not Lily.

Certainly not Sammy, if he was dead.

Sammy hated it.

\--

The first Valentine’s Day Sammy spent with Jack back by his side was the best one. Each one that followed it would be amazing and perfect in every conceivable way, but none of them would be able to hold a candle to the sheer amount of blissful euphoria that Sammy felt that very first day he shared with Jack.

Jack had been back home for a while when the holiday rolled around. He’d escaped the Void with help from Sammy, Ben, Emily, Lily and everybody else that mattered in this small mountainside town. The town that had once been the source of so much pain and misery in Sammy’s life had become the only place in the world that Sammy ever felt as though he truly belonged in. He had family here. He had friends here.

His lover was here with him, in the apartment they were sharing right next to Ben and Emily. Sammy didn’t want to be anywhere that Jack wasn’t. He never wanted to leave his side, and Jack never wanted to leave his husband’s side either.

Of course, Jack hadn’t escaped that infinite purgatory unscathed. Both mentally and physically. Sammy had insisted hundreds upon hundreds of times that the pale scars criss-crossing Jack’s smooth brown skin weren’t anything to be ashamed of. Jack’s skin had been perfect before, with its rich complexion and smattering of darker freckles on his cheeks, shoulders and chest, and it still was now. Nothing about Jack was off-putting or even remotely undesirable about Jack, in Sammy’s weary, bag-laiden eyes. Even if Jack avoided mirrors for fear of catching sight of the jagged lines splitting up his face and wherever else his skin was exposed, Sammy drank in his lover’s beauty whenever he could.

And since he refused to ever leave his side, that was pretty much constantly.

Sammy had comforted Jack hundreds of times whenever he woke up screaming from his sleep, wailing and sobbing about snaking black shadows that dragged themselves out of the gaping black cave mouth up in Perdition Wood, threatening to drag him back into the Void and keeping him imprisoned there forever. Sammy had wrapped his arms around his shaking husband and held him close, held him tight, refusing to let him go until he had calmed down enough to sleep again. He’d still held onto him then, while Jack slept in his arms, occasionally whining in his slumber as nightmares infested his mind.

He’d ran his hands through Jack’s messy hair countless times, whispering promises into his ear. 

“I’m never gonna leave you alone again. You’re never gonna deal with anything on your own again. I’m here for you. I swear. I’ll never let you out of my sight again, Jack. I promise.”

Things had came to a head the first Valentine’s Day the two of them spent together.

It was their first celebration following Jack’s return.

It was their first celebration following their wedding.

It was their first celebration following the move into their new apartment.

It was their first celebration after becoming permanent residents of King Falls, the tiny mountainside town that was perpetually wreathed in ethereal fog.

It was their first Valentine’s Day they actually shared without fear of ridicule, or harassment, or rejection. It was the first of many, and just thinking about all the new and wonderful things to come was enough to bring tears of joy streaming down their faces.

Sammy couldn’t believe that Jack was with him again.

And he couldn’t be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another SamJack Fic!  
> I'm kinda jumping the shark a little bit here, especially since none of us have any idea how long it will be until we finally get to meet Jack in person. It could take years! But that won't stop me from writing Fics supporting my two beautiful kids in their endeavours to make one another happy after taking their relationship for granted!  
> Something that I especially love about this Fic was how I described Jack. Prior to being taken into The Void, I imagine Jack as being pretty toned and lean, with really messy hair and glasses, as well as dark brown skin. And here, after spending the better part of a decade trapped in that awful awful place with no way to come home, he's laced with countless scars.
> 
> But Sammy is there to make sure everything is fine.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are very much appreciated!


End file.
